Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘Tim Hedges’

So there we were. Full count, bases loaded, two out. Championship game. A score of 1 – 0. The whole season narrowing down to a single pitch. Cue the slow-motion. Cue the Hollywood score: soaring strings, a drumbeat to match the rhythm of our hearts. We’ve seen this moment before. What we’ve not seen is the twist in Tom Perrotta’s short story “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face.” The pay-off pitch strikes the catcher’s mitt, and our narrator, the volunteer umpire, refuses to make the crucial call. But we are Americans, you say. We are all about winning and losing. […]

“Whatever you do, stay in the room.” So advises Ron Carlson in his book on the craft of writing, appropriately titled Ron Carlson Writes a Story. He knows what world exists on the other side of the door: a world full of televised sports, dirty dishes, iced mochachinos. A world full of distraction from the task at hand. Writing, he argues, is about staying in the room, pushing beyond the point where your eyes glaze over and your fingers refuse to type. That’s where the magic lies.